Syria accepts new peace plan

THE SYRIAN government has accepted the six-point peace plan presented by the United Nations and Arab League Special Envoy, Kofi Annan, following a unanimous call from the UN Security Council on all political forces in Syria to support the Annan initiative.

The plan seeks the end of civil strife under UN supervision, the freeing of anti-government protesters who have been detained, and establishes the sending of humanitarian aid.

In talks with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, Kofi Annan said the plan would create an environment favourable to political dialogue with conditions to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.

The UN Security Council statement is a defeat for the imperialists who had been repeatedly trying to push through an interventionist mandate à la Libya to justify new Nato aggression against Syria.

Two previous attempts were vetoed by Russia and China and Moscow and Beijing made it clear they were not going to budge when the imperialists started to make a third attempt last month.

The new statement was agreed by Russia and People’s China precisely because it reflected what both countries have been saying on Syria all along and exactly what their diplomats have been working towards in their talks with the Syrian leadership and other Arab governments.

Unlike the two blocked draft resolutions, the new statement does not contain any words implying forced regime change in Syria, nor does it call for one-sided pressure on the Syrian government or sanctions or the threat of sanctions on Damascus.

While Syria prepares for fresh elections under the new constitution as part of the reform movement sponsored by the ruling Arab Socialist Renaissance Party and it allies, in the current popular front government the army continues mopping up operations to root out the remnants of the reactionary “Free Syria Army,” which is funded by the feudal Arab oil princes, Turkey and the rest of the Nato pack.

But peace has returned to Homs following the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood terror gangs earlier in the month. And Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was greeted by cheering crowds when he visited scenes of the fiercest fighting in neighbourhood of Baba Amr in Homs this week.

Meanwhile the UN is investigating claims that the “Free Syrian Army” is using child soldiers in their struggle to overthrow the Assad government. The reported allegations were voiced by Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children in armed conflict.

She did not provide any detail and said the UN has not “been able to verify or check” the accusations so far. The accusations followed a report by Human Rights Watch, no friend of the Syrian government, that rebels were engaged in abuses including “kidnapping, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called shabiha”.The Syrian Communist Party, a member of the Baathist-led National Progressive Front government, recently condemned the reactionary Arab regimes that have given massive support to the forces of insurrection and terrorism in Syria.

The Syrian communists accuse the Gulf Arab oil princes of competing to see which will be the best in carrying out the imperialist plan to topple the national government in Syria.

This, they say, stresses the importance of a co-ordinated national struggle against Zionism and imperialism together with a strict non-conciliatory stand against the reactionary Arab regimes that are subsidiary to imperialism.